Selected as a Book of the Year in 2017 in the Irish Times and The TimesSHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2017 'A delicate, crystalline, hugely impressive novel... He's yet another masterful younger writer coming through... Wonderful' - Sebastian Barry

Her house is on Montpelier Parade - just across town, but it might as well be a different world. Sonny is fixing a crumbling wall in the garden when he sees her for the first time, coming down the path towards him. Vera.

Vera is older, wealthier, sophisticated, but chance meetings quickly become shy arrangements, and soon Sonny is in love for the first time. But there is something unsettling that Vera is keeping from him. Unfolding in the sea-bright Dublin of early spring, Montpelier Parade is an indelible novel about the things that remain unspoken between lovers. It is about how deeply we can connect with one another, and the choices we must make alone.Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2017

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Review

A delicate, crystalline, hugely impressive novel by Karl Geary. He's yet another masterful younger writer coming through. But these writers aren't just promising, they are arriving fully fledged, like a bunch of Hemingways and Waughs. (A pride of Hemingways?) This is language on the side of life, suggesting life, giving life. Wonderful. -- Sebastian Barry

Intensely powerful., Sunday Mirror

Luminous…brilliantly paced, full of tension and tenderness., Irish Times

Few novelists debut with a masterpiece, but Geary has done just that. Stunning., Mail on Sunday

Montpelier Parade is haunting – a portrayal of loneliness that is eerily beautiful and desperately moving -- Lisa McInerney, author of The Glorious Heresies

Luminous and moving. A story that asks who you can love and how, and a novel that gets to the heart of things; it certainly got to the heart of me. -- Sunjeev Sahota

A genuine talent., Daily Mail

The precision in his prose bellies his training as a scriptwriter; the plot unfolds with self-assured ease, and the dialogue lives on the page… He trusts his reader, and the novel has compulsive power because of it. An astonishing debut. -- Calen O'Hanlon, Skinny

A groundbreaking debut. Montpelier Parade is a taut, riveting, beautifully sparse coming of age tale from a fearless new talent -- Téa Obreht, National Book Award Finalist & New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife

I hope that someone will give me an advance copy… I’ve heard it’s lyrical, brave and inventive – everything I look for in a novel. -- Maggie O'Farrell, Observer, Book of the Year

Book Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2017

Vera is beautiful and unknowable; Sonny is young and hungry for the world. Their connection changes everything.

About the Author

Karl Geary was born in Dublin, and moved to New York City at age sixteen. He has worked as a script writer (Coney Island Baby), and an actor (Michael Almereyda's Hamlet, and Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall), and has adapted and directed Dorothy Parker's 'You Were Perfectly Fine' for the screen. He lives in Glasgow with his wife and daughter.

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Top international reviews

Dragonfly

5.0 out of 5 starsI loved this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 September 2017

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Beautiful spare writing - no waffle. Characters well defined and I couldn't help but be moved by the mother, father, Sharon and the boy and his lover. Awful the lives people are forced to live and the effect those lives have on their characters. Great read.

This was a true pleasure to read. The undercurrent of sadness throughout the story entices you to want to know more about the main characters. It encapsulates growing up in 80s Dublin and the subtle background to the story is well defined by the author.I would highly recommend it

4.0 out of 5 starsI thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't say I particularly like coming ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 January 2018

Verified Purchase

This debut novel was very absorbing. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't say I particularly like coming of age novels, but I read this in one sitting, as I got so engrossed. I look forward to more from this author.

There was absolutely nothing redeeming about poor Sonny’s life. The tale kept me reading in the hope that something good would happen to the misfortunate lad, but it didn’t! Well worth a read but not if you suffer from depression!